The invention relates to a process for the production of tufted carpet tiles, comprising making a tufted carpet web by tufting a pile yarn in a substrate in a usual way, and providing the tufted substrate on the backside with a precoat of a rubber latex and with a backing. The raw carpet is then subjected to dyeing, steaming, washing and drying, and then the tiles are cut or punched, from the carpet web.
A similar process is substantially well-known. In the book "Textielwaren" by P. J. M. van Gorp and A. J. G. M. Hombergen, Wolters-Noordhoff, 1974, in particular on pages 400-405, the production of dyed tufted carpet is described. In Dutch Patent Application No. 72 01565 it is stated on page 2 that a usual method for the production of carpet tiles consists of punching tiles from a backed carpet web.
Both for (wall-to-wall) carpeting and for carpet tiles generally accepted requirements for dimensional stability set up by the "Deutsches Teppich Institut" at Aachen apply, namely that the maximum variations in dimensions in the tests described in DIN 54318 must remain within the following limits of tolerance:
______________________________________ wall-to-wall carpeting carpet tiles ______________________________________ growth +0.4% +0.2% shrinkage -0.8% -0.4% ______________________________________
The conventional tufted carpet tiles comply with these requirements and do not give problems in their use.
Nowadays, there is not only a demand for dyed, tufted carpet tiles, but also for repeating pattern decorated, tufted carpet tiles. When attempts are made to produce such tiles by making in a usual way (vide Textielwarn l.c., pages 405/406) a dyed and imprinted, tufted carpet web and cutting tiles from this decorated, tufted carpet web, the percentage of waste in the form of tiles on which the repeating pattern is shifted or deformed with regard to the tile edges or tiles where the repeating pattern is even partly cutt off, is unacceptably high.
The high requirements already set for the dimensional stability of carpet tiles are still inadequate in that case.